Revised chronology for late Pleistocene Mono Lake sediments based on paleointensity correlation to the global reference curve

Type Article
Date 2006-11
Language English
Author(s) Zimmerman Susan H.1, Hemming Sidney R.1, 2, Kent Dennis V.2, 3, Searle Stephanie Y.1
Affiliation(s) 1 : Columbia Univ, Dept Earth & Environm Sci, New York, NY 10027 USA.
2 : Columbia Univ, Lamont Doherty Earth Observ, Palisades, NY 10964 USA.
3 : Rutgers State Univ, Dept Geol Sci, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA.
Source Earth And Planetary Science Letters (0012-821X) (Elsevier Science Bv), 2006-11 , Vol. 252 , N. 1-2 , P. 94-106
DOI 10.1016/j.epsl.2006.09.030
WOS© Times Cited 53
Keyword(s) paleointensity, GLOPIS, argon, Great Basin, Mono Lake excursion, Laschamp
Abstract Lakes are highly sensitive recorders of climate processes, but are extremely difficult to correlate precisely to ice-core and marine records, especially in the absence of reliable radiocarbon dates. Relative paleointensity (RPI) of Earth's magnetic field is an independent method of correlating high-resolution climate records, and can be applied to both marine and terrestrial sediments, as well as (inversely) correlated to the cosmogenic nuclide records preserved in ice cores. Here we present the correlation of an RPI record from Mono Lake, California to GLOPIS, the Global PaleoIntensity Stack, which increases the age estimation of the basal Mono Lake sediments by > 20000 yr (20 kyr), from similar to 40 ka (kyr before present) to 67 ka. The Mono Lake sediments thus preserve paleoclimatic records of most of the last glacial period, from 67 to 14 ka. In addition, the paleointensity-based age of 40 ka for the geomagnetic excursion preserved at Mono Lake indicates that this is a record of the global Laschamp excursion.
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